6 End-of-Year Ideas for Distance Learning

End-of-Year Ideas for Distance Learning

Even when distance learning had just begun, I was already thinking about how we might bring closure to the school year in a meaningful way.

I’m big on traditions and knew that we wouldn’t be able to end the school year with our annual slide ceremony as we have done in the past.

So instead of grumbling about what we couldn’t do, I got busy thinking about what we COULD do!

Here are 5 ideas that I think work well, even from a distance!

Virtual Field Trips

June is typically filled with fun days at our school and the kids really look forward to several events.

Field trips, school olympics, family fun nights, and class picnics are all part of our end-of-school-year festivities.

For the last 5 weeks, I’ve been dedicating one Zoom meeting to a virtual field trip.  These trips include a Beach Day, Theme Park Visit, Zoo Trip, Camping Trip, Teddy Bear Picnic and a Day at the Farm.

Each virtual field trip or event includes movement songs, stem projects or crafts, directed drawings, virtual experiences, and games that simulate a field trip experience in a playful and imaginary way.

Moving-Up Ceremony

While we’ve never done a kindergarten graduation, we do honor children’s step up to the next grade.  This year we will do a Moving Up Day during a Zoom meeting and invite parents to join their child as we transition and celebrate our “little school of fish” as they “swim” on up to the next grade.

This playful program will end with us singing Baby Shark, graduation style, and thanking all the “mama sharks” and “papa sharks” for all they have done to support their child this year!

End-of-Year Countdown Days

We changed up our lessons for the last 10 weeks of school to an end-of-year countdown format where each day’s activities center around the countdown number.

For example, on Day 10 the children learn about crabs, a ten-footed animal, use their 10 fingers to create a handprint butterfly, set up ten “pins” to go bowling, and count forward and backward from the decade in which they were born.  Most activities include links that parents can use to easily access informational videos, songs, read alouds, and directions for activities.

There’s also a countdown chain that families can make at home to count the days until the end of the year.

Next Grade Field Trip

In the classroom, I always devote a few days to help children learn about the next grade and share their feelings about leaving kindergarten and moving up.  We create a, We Are (Almost) in First Grade book, and visit the next grade to listen to the kids share their favorite things about that grade and ask the teacher questions.

This year, we will do that via Zoom, by inviting a first grade student and teacher to one of our Zoom meetings to tell us what we can expect.  This will hopefully ease anxiety a bit for children who are nervous and help them get excited about what they can do in first grade that was not part of their kindergarten experience.

Class Picnic

Our class picnic this year will be a Teddy Bear picnic where the kids will bring their stuffed friend to a Zoom meeting and we will have lunch together, do a meet and greet, play musical bears, and make a night-night cave.

I’ve done this in the classroom as well, but this usually extends to a “sleepover,” where the kids leave their “friends” overnight and they party, party, party, leaving a big mess behind! Pictures document the whole scene and I show them to the kids the next day. Lots of fun!

Goodbye Gifts

Parents are scheduled to come pick up their kiddos’ things in a few weeks and I wanted to put a few surprises in their bags.  I saw this end-of-year treat topper and thought the words were very fitting for this school year.

Little did we know in early March that our days were numbered and that we would not get anymore face-to-face time with our kids.  This makes me so sad!

While none of these end-of-year ideas for distance learning can replace the live versions of our wrap-up activities, I’m glad we have a few things up our sleeve that can help us bring closure to the year in a fun way.

Thanks for stopping by,